U.S. House Defies Obama With $554 Billion Defense Bill

May 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House of Representatives
passed a $554 billion defense bill that rejects Pentagon
proposals to curtail or slow weapons programs, bans same-sex
marriages on military bases and backs indefinite detention
without trial of terrorism suspects.

The Republican-controlled House today passed on a vote of
299-120 the defense authorization measure setting spending
targets and policy for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The
Obama administration has threatened to veto the measure if it
impedes the Pentagon’s new defense strategy.

The bill is about $4 billion more than the Democratic Obama
administration said could be spent for fiscal 2013 to stay
within deficit-reduction targets.

“In an era of austerity, it is critical that we carefully
allocate every penny that goes to the Defense Department,”
Representative Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, the California
Republican who leads the House Armed Services Committee said in
a statement after the House passage of the bill. “The bill also
postures our armed forces for potential future threats.”

The House rejected Pentagon proposals to curtail or slow
weapons programs such as Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Global Hawk
drone and General Dynamics Corp.’s Abrams battle tanks as well
as Virginia-class submarines built by Huntington Ingalls
Industries Inc. and the Electric Boat unit of General Dynamics.
House lawmakers also adopted a provision that seeks to prevent
automatic defense spending cuts for fiscal year 2013 as a result
of failed negotiations last year between Congress and the White
House on ways to reduce the deficit.

Revised Military Strategy

Obama in January presented a revamped U.S. military
strategy for an era of budget cuts that pledges to emphasize the
Asia-Pacific region and space and cyber capabilities while
preserving missions such as defeating al-Qaeda. The Obama
administration is seeking a reduction in the number of military
personnel as it tries to cut $487 billion from the defense
budget over the next decade.

The 2013 defense authorization bill seeks to slow the pace
of personnel reductions in the military and would block new
rounds of military base closings in the U.S.

The House-passed legislation would block same-sex marriages
and “marriage-like” ceremonies on military bases. Last year,
Obama ended the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that barred
openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the military.

Indefinite Detention

The House measure backs indefinite detention without trial
of terrorism suspects, including U.S. citizens, captured on U.S.
soil. A coalition of Democrats and Republicans failed today to
roll back existing defense policy.

The coalition, led by Representative Adam Smith of
Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services
Committee, sought to include a provision to allow terrorism
suspects seized on U.S. soil to be handled by civilian courts
and not in military custody.

“To give the president the power to take away a person’s
freedom and lock them up, potentially simply based on
allegations, without due process, and without the civil
liberties protected by our constitution, is an extraordinary
step,” Smith said in a statement today.

En route to final passage, the House rejected calls for an
end to the war in Afghanistan and blocking assistance funds to
Pakistan.

Withdrawing Troops

The debate on the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s role in
the stability of its neighbor preceded the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization summit this weekend in Chicago where the U.S. will
press allies to stick to a plan of withdrawing combat troops by
the end of 2014.

The House yesterday backed a provision that would prohibit
the Defense Department from awarding a contract to supply
helicopters to the Afghan security forces to any entity
“controlled, directed or influenced” by a state that has
supplied weapons to Syria or a state-sponsor of terrorism.

The Pentagon has said it’s in a bind, with nowhere to turn
for helicopters needed by Afghanistan’s air force except Russia,
a top arms supplier to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

The U.S. Army has a $375 million contract to buy 21
Russian-made MI-17 helicopters for the Afghans from
Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state-run arms trader.

The measure also includes a provision written by Kay
Granger, a Texas Republican, that forces the Obama
administration to sell to Taiwan no fewer than 66 Lockheed
Martin Corp. F-16 C/D fighter jets which are built in her state.

War Operations

The House armed services panel approved $88.5 billion as
requested for war operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The
war funds are in addition to the $554 billion base bill that
includes budget authority for military construction and Energy
Department defense programs.

While the armed services panel endorsed the Pentagon’s
request to buy 29 F-35 stealth jets made by Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, it is pressing the Defense Department to
disclose by Dec. 31 the date by which it expects the three
versions of the fighter planes to become operational. The
Pentagon requested $9.1 billion for the F-35 in the 2013 budget.

The panel backed the full budget request of $292 million
for research and development of a new long-range strike bomber,
attaching a provision pressing the Air Force to ensure that the
plane can carry nuclear weapons as soon as it is operational.

The defense panel overrode Army plans to suspend production
of upgraded Abrams tanks built by Falls Church, Virginia-based
General Dynamics. The committee added $181 million to the Army’s
budget, for a total of $255.4 million, to keep building the
tanks and converting them into the latest M1A2 model at the
plant in Lima, Ohio.

Northrop’s Global Hawk

The committee’s measure would block the Pentagon’s plan to
retire one version of the Global Hawk drone by Northrop Grumman,
based in Falls Church, Virginia, and requires that the secretary
of the Air Force take “all actions necessary” to keep the so-called Global Hawk Block 30 operating through 2014.

The Pentagon proposed truncating purchases of the Global
Hawk variant and putting the drones it had bought into storage.
Air Force officials said those drones are more expensive to
operate and have less sensing capacity than Lockheed Martin’s
older U-2 spy planes. The Defense Department has projected
savings of $2.5 billion over five years from cutting short the
Block 30 version.

The House panel would authorize an additional $263 million,
for a total of $338.3 million, to fund operations of the Block
30 drones. The Air Force spent $3.4 billion on development and
procurement of the 18 aircraft, according to Air Force
spokeswoman Jennifer Cassidy.

Submarine Purchases

The Armed Services Committee backed the production of two
Virginia-class submarines in 2014 that the Navy struck from
fiscal 2014 plans. The panel recommended adding a down payment,
or “advance procurement,” of materials and added $778 million
for that purpose.

The Navy had planned to buy two Virginia-class submarines a
year, with the work split between Huntington Ingalls, based in
Newport News, Virginia, and Groton, Connecticut-based Electric
Boat. Instead, the Pentagon proposes buying one in fiscal 2014
and delaying another until fiscal 2018.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system also stands to
gain as much as $680 million in U.S. aid through 2015 under the
committee’s legislation for the system built by Rafael Advanced
Defense Systems Ltd.

Some provisions added by the House committee may become
items for negotiation with the Senate. The Senate Armed Services
Committee is scheduled to start considering its version of the
defense authorization bill on May 22.